


And then along came John (or, Five Times McClane Saved Daisy Duke)

by megyal



Category: Live Free or Die Hard (2007)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-08-31
Updated: 2008-08-31
Packaged: 2017-10-11 09:59:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/111169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/megyal/pseuds/megyal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I might have used a prompt or two from the <a href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/hard4brains/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/hard4brains/"><strong>hard4brains</strong></a>'s <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/hard4brains/51805.html">July 4 Ficathon</a>; I know there's one from <a href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/seraphina_snape/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/seraphina_snape/"><strong>seraphina_snape</strong></a>: <em>Undercover/pretend boyfriends!</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	And then along came John (or, Five Times McClane Saved Daisy Duke)

_Well I plopped down in my easy chair and turned on Channel Two  
A bad gunslinger called Salty Sam was chasin' poor Sweet Sue  
He trapped her in the old sawmill and said with an evil laugh,  
"If you don't give me the deed to your ranch, I'll saw you all in half!"  
And then he grabbed her!  
And then? He tied her up!   
And then? He turned on the bandsaw!  
And then?  
And then?!_  
"Along came Jones" - the Coasters

**1.**

There was... you know, that whole Fire Sale thing.

**2.**

"Oh, hi there," was the very first thing Matt said when John dragged him out, coughing and sputtering, out of the ruins of the fourth floor of the J. Edgar Hoover building. John wasn't even supposed to be there so frigging late. He usually had Friday evenings off, a real nice perk for this new position. Bowman had had a bug up his ass about some security issue, though; turned out he was fuckin' right, because there was an explosion right after lunch-time, rocking the building from roof to foundation.

As he had picked himself up from the generic blue carpet the Fibbies were so into, John had mused distractedly, _ugh, I didn't even eat lunch yet and I'm so fucking hungry._

Then he had thought, as he brushed scraps of plaster from his head and off his shoulders, _if I haven't eaten as yet, Hackboy is probably near death by now._

Then, as someone screeched out that the explosion was centered on the western quadrant of the fourth floor, John's mind went: _ah shit, that fucking kid._

Bowman had been apoplectic in the Control Room, flinging orders left and right as John ran past.

"McClane, where the _hell_ do you think you're going?" Bowman cried as he shoved the door open.

"Your entire network defense department is on the western end of the fourth floor," John had yelled back. "I'm guessing you're gonna need him in the future!"

He'd raced down the hall, slipping around people running towards the emergency staircase, yelling, "Move!" as he pushed his way through a bottleneck at the door. He practically flew down the flight of stairs to the floor below, fighting his way through another blockage of panicked employees trying to head out of the building.

An entire section of the exterior wall on the fourth floor was completely gone, the red of the flashing emergency lights nearly lost in the bright sunshine streaming in. Some schmuck dressed in black from head to toe rappelled into the corridor through the ragged opening; John grabbed onto their foot and, using their momentum, yanked them off the rope and swung them head-first into the nearest office door.

He didn't have to stop and ask any questions; apparently, this freak was up to no good.

Three more guys swung into the damaged corridor. John kicked one right back out and elbowed another in the chest, elbow-dropping him as he doubled over in agony; John gave his own grunt of pain as the last one gave him a solid punch right in his ribs.

Oh, that fucking _hurt_.

"Go find Farrell," this one told the other in a low, raspy voice and John gave him a nice uppercut to the jaw, grabbing him around the shoulders as he flailed back and ramming his head about three or four times into a filing cabinet that had been standing quite conveniently nearby.

Or maybe it was six times; John got a little over-enthusiastic when it came to things like these, and it wasn't like he was keeping count, anyway.

The other guy was stumbling down the hallway when John released the limp body of his esteemed associate. John did a move he hadn't tried out in about ten years, running at the guy and jumping to kick him with both feet in the back. The upside of this was that the guy was propelled forward with an alarmed squawk, crashing into a glass door and falling to the floor.

The downside of this move was that John landed heavily on his back, pain receptors waking up all over his body and going: _John, we hate you, so so much_.

Seriously, he was getting too old for this shit.

He managed to rise to his feet, grasping at his lower back with a grimace and staggering over to where Matt's office was located. The door was standing askew and John crawled over it, pushing aside bits of separating drywall and going towards where he knew Matt's desk was.

"Kid, you better be alright," he muttered as he dug through the debris. "Cause if you aren't, I might have to drag you back to life or something. You don't want that, Matt, come on, _come on_."

"Oh, hi there," Matt greeted him weakly as the last bit of rubble was removed. His face was streaked in dust and he looked as if he'd gone a week in the Sahara; but as John hauled him out and steadied him on his feet, his grip on John's forearm was like a clamp. "Shit, I lost like fifty lines of code."

"Jesus," was all John could reply to this particular snippet of idiocy, wanting to shake him a little and contenting himself with trying to get about a pound of grime out of Matt's hair and face. He took a deep breath and continued: "_Jesus_, Matt, someone blew up a whole floor of a building to get to you and that's all you can think about?"

"McClane, you try losing a whole day's worth of work, and then you can talk." He coughed and then frowned. "Wait, they did this for _me_?"

"Yeah. You're really popular, Daisy. Must be the legs." John held him around the waist, his slender body resting all along John's side, warm and heavy for his size.

"Huh," Matt said dryly and then coughed again. "It's a lucky thing I'm used to people trying to kill me or, you know, kidnap me." He let his head rest on John's shoulder as they made their way down the hall, the security personnel doing their patented belated entry.

"Hey, also? It's a lucky thing," Matt said quietly, "I have you."

John simply held him a little tighter and kept walking.

 

**3.**

John bought Matt his coffee every single morning, and from the way Matt made happy noises as he put nearly his whole face in the tall white cup, it was like Matt was suffering from some detrimental disease and John had presented him with the cure.

"Oh god," Matt would always say, looking up at John with large, grateful eyes. "It's like my life in a cup. You're a lifesaver, John McClane."

"Matt, you know what caffeine does to your body, right?"

"No, John." Matt's look of mock-innocence was always the same. "No, I have no idea what caffeine does to your body. And yet, you bring up a cup for me every morning. Are you trying to kill me or keep me happy?"

"Maybe both," John would say with a cryptic little smile and that would be his cue to stride out of Matt's office, the kid's laughter trailing out behind him.

 

**4.**

John narrowed his eyes as he approached Matt's car in the basement parking. He'd asked the kid for a ride home while his car was in the shop, and while Matt drove like some elderly person ("John, I've seen how you drive. You're not touching my car."), he got them both home safe and sound. John never knew how much he liked being chauffeured around until he had Matt doing it for him. He even got the kid to drive him around town on errands some weekends, and while Matt always bitched about this, he never told John _no_.

Matt was standing against his car, two large Federal agents leaning into him menacingly. John had seen them around, lower-level meatheads that had too much time and not enough work on their hands. Matt had his arms folded across his chest, looking up at them with bored disgust. He was tense, though; John could see his long fingers tapping rapidly on the side of his coat.

"Problem?" he rumbled and the two meatheads spun around, focusing on him at once.

"Mr. McClane," the shorter one said in a respectful tone, stepping away from Matt. The kid's face was stony, but his eyes were bright as they locked onto John's. "No problem here, sir."

"Then maybe you can give me a reason why you're messing with my friend, here." John took one step closer; they were both much larger and younger than he was, but John never let a thing like that get in his way. From the look on their faces and the way they took a step back, they probably heard about this particular trait of his, too.

"Your _friend_?" The other one still burst out, a bulky guy with a spiky blond crew-cut. "This fag is your friend?" He gulped when John sent him a hard glower. "Sir?"

John slanted a long, questioning look in Matt's direction. Matt's chin lifted a bit and the closed look on his face did not change. For some reason, John felt a rush of pride.

"Yeah," he said softly, not breaking the locked gaze with Matt. "Seems a few people forgot what you did a couple years ago, huh, Matt?"

"Seems a few people will always be fucking assholes who can't leave well enough alone," Matt murmured and the soft vehemence in his voice told John all he needed to know.

John finally snapped back his gaze to the two young agents. "Tell you what," he began in a reasonable manner and they relaxed a bit. "Next time I see you within four feet of Mr. Farrell here, I just might tear both of you a new asshole."

These two punks, (because that's what they were, one could always find punks anywhere, even in uniform or behind a badge), their bodies tensed again real fast. They gave John identical looks of disappointed betrayal, but John really didn't give a fuck.

"Because he can do that," Matt chimed in, shifting his weight so that he could cross one ankle over the other.

"Then I'll ask Mr. Farrell here to work his magic on the interwebs-thing. Find out your little secrets, you know? Because... he can do that."

"Mr. McClane, are you _threatening_ us?" The shorter one asked a little belligerently.

"See, I don't know. If you're _feeling_ threatened, that's not my problem, son." John stepped past them with a dismissive air. "Let's roll, Matt."

Matt deactivated the car's alarm and they both slid in. Matt started his car and John watched him as he gazed in the rearview mirror, most likely making sure those two jugheads were beating feet. Sometimes, John mused as he buckled his seatbelt, his infamous name and grizzly nature came in real handy.

"Thanks," Matt said tightly.

"No problem," John said, and really meant it.

"And John?" Matt sounded a little more like his normal, affable self as he put the car into the reverse and turned to put his arm around the back of John's seat, so he could look behind to back out of his space. "It's the _internet_. Not the _interwebs_. You say shit like that, I feel that all my hard work has gone down the drain."

John shrugged. "It's not like I listen to half the crap you say, anyway, Matt," and he grinned as Matt laughed out loud. The guard at the security booth gave them a narrow stare, but John was too busy telling Matt this long joke about Bowman to pay attention to _him_.

 

**5.**

Nearly everyone had left the office Christmas party and John was just about ready to head on out, because Christmas _really_ wasn't his thing, when he felt someone sling a hand through the crook of his elbow and yank him around.

Matt was standing there in a shadowed corner, looking up at him with a wide smile. John blinked down at that smile for a long second or two, before returning his own slow, wry grin.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey," Matt answered softly, and in an even lower tone: "Don't go crazy on me."

"What?" John asked with a puzzled frown, but Matt had turned away a little and John noticed another guy standing there, a drink in one hand and a suspicious look on his handsome face.

"See, I told you I had a boyfriend," Matt told this guy, who raised his eyebrows and shook the drink in his hand, making the ice-cubes tinkle against each other. "I wasn't joking or anything."

"Really," the guy said and there was a nasty smile in his voice. "_He's_ your boyfriend."

"I prefer the term _partner_," Matt said with a considering air. "_Boyfriend_ implies he's a _boy_, and as you can see, he's all man."

"Oh, Jesus," John muttered, a little mortified and a whole lot entertained.

"Right." The guy sounded skeptical and there was a avaricious gleam in his eyes as he stared at Matt and ignored John. "Look, I'm sure you've figured out by now that I don't play games, Matthew."

Maybe it was the way he said Matt's name, or how he was looking Matt up and down as if pondering which part to gnaw on first, but _something_ got John's blood boiling a little. Without thinking about it, John reached out and cupped the nape of Matt's neck, pulling him forward. He watched those brown eyes widen as he bent his head and pressed his mouth firmly against Matt's.

For a moment, it was like John was kissing a statue, Matt was that rigid with shock. Then Matt melted with a low moan at the back of his throat and held on tightly to the front of John's shirt, dragging him closer. John had a fleeting thought of pulling away, for this was something he hadn't done in _years_, he'd forgotten how this could be; but Matt's mouth tasted as if he had been eating too much of those pastries that Bowman's assistant had brought. John couldn't stop nipping and licking, delighting in how Matt followed his every move greedily.

He heard the guy make a disgusted _tsk_ and move away, but John only stopped kissing Matt when he had to come up for air.

"Okay," Matt said breathlessly, licking his reddened lips. "Um. Thanks."

John gave him another slow smile and Matt swayed forward like a cobra being hypnotized, brushing his lips against John's. "No problem," he said against Matt's mouth, and really meant it.

_fin_


End file.
